The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Such increased ease of information transfer and convenience to users has recently been accompanied by an increased ability to provide mobile communications at a relatively low cost. Accordingly, mobile communication devices are becoming ubiquitous in the modern world. With the rapid expansion of mobile communications technology, there has been a related rapid expansion in those services that are demanded and provided via mobile communication devices.
One area in which services have recently expanded relates to provision of various applications or software to users of electronic devices such as a mobile terminal. The applications or software may be executed from a local computer, a network server or other network device, or from the mobile terminal such as, for example, a mobile telephone, a mobile television, a mobile gaming system, etc, or even from a combination of the mobile terminal and the network device. In this regard, various applications and software have been developed and continue to be developed in order to give the users robust capabilities to perform tasks, communicate, obtain information or services, entertain themselves, etc. in either fixed or mobile environments.
One example of a service that may desirably be provided by modern communication networks relates to teleconferencing or the provision of conference calling. A conference call is a telephone call in which at least three parties participate. Teleconference systems are widely used to connect participants together for a conference call, independent of the physical locations of the participants. Teleconference calls are typically arranged in a centralized manner, but may also be arranged in alternate manners, such as in a distributed teleconference architecture as described further below.
Reference is now drawn to FIG. 1, which illustrates a schematic block diagram of a plurality of participants effectuating a centralized teleconference session via a conferencing switch 100. The illustration is representative of a traditional centralized teleconferencing system connecting participants 102, 104, 106 at several Sites A, B, and C, respectively, to a conference call, meaning that several locations are connected with one to n conference participants. The terminal or device at each site that corresponds to the participants 102, 104, 106 connects to the conference switch 100 as a stand-alone conference participant for the call. The conference switch 100, also referred to as a conference bridge, mixes incoming speech signals from each site and sends the mixed signal back to each site. The speech signal coming from the current site is usually removed from the mixed signal that is sent back to this same site.
Although techniques have been developed for effectuating conference sessions in numerous arrangements as indicated by the examples above, it may still be desirable to improve upon these existing techniques. Accordingly, it may be desirable to develop a mechanism that may overcome at least some of the disadvantages associated with the arrangements described above.